Publications

FROM EARTHQUAKE TRAGEDY TO BEACON OF LIGHT: THE STORY OF THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF ARMENIA

By
Armen Der Kiureghian

2024

Published by AUA Press, under the direction of Shushan Avagyan, the book chronicles the University’s 30-year journey of founding, growth, challenges, and achievements. It is the story of the American University of Armenia from the moment of its conceptualization after the Spitak earthquake of 1988, to its founding in 1991 under extremely challenging conditions, and its remarkable growth and advancement over the last three decades.The book was launched at AUA in December 2024.

Order a copy here

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REGARDING THE PAIN OF OTHERS

By
Susan Sontag

Translated by Gayane Tevosyan

2022

Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of It is the first book by the celebrated American writer to be available in Armenian. The translation rights were acquired from David Rieff, the son of Susan Sontag, through the Wylie Agency (UK) in 2020. The translation was undertaken by Gayane Tevosyan (CTr. ‘19), who worked closely with the editor and director of AUA Press, Shushan Avagyan, to produce an equally compelling text in Armenian. The book launch was hosted at AUA in October 2022. 

 

OUR PLANET

By
Dianna Torosyan
and Irshat Madyarov

2020

A textbook for learning English around environmental topics. It comes with hands-on activities including community service and research projects.The book is authored by Diana Torosyan (MATEFL ’16) and Dr. Irshat Madyarov, chair of the Master of Arts in Teaching English as a Foreign Language program. Torosyan embarked on the mission of creating a content-based course for teaching English on environmental topics within the scope of her capstone project. Under the supervision of Dr. Madyarov, she managed to develop her work into a thoroughly elaborated textbook.

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NEGOTIATION OF DIFFERENCES IN THE SHARED URBAN SPACE

Edited by Alina Poghosyan and
Vahram Danielyan

2017

A collection of essays that encompass various insights into the experiences of Armenians and Turks sharing common urban space, negotiating differences, striving to attain or seize space for representations of belonging, identity, history, power, etc. The essays discuss the negotiation of differences in the shared urban space from the perspectives of urban planning, literature, musicology, and travel experiences.

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LOCOMOTIVE

By
Arto Vaun

Issue #1, 2016

Locomotive, a journal of new writing, brings together innovative contemporary work by diverse global voices. Locomotive was published by the Center for Creative Writing at the American University of Armenia. The first issue includes works by Renee Gladman, Norbert Hirschhorn, Kate Northrop, Amina Said, and others. Locomotive was the first non-Armenian literary journal that was edited, published, and exported by Armenia to various bookstores around the world.

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WE REFUGEES

By
Hannah Arendt

2016

A volume of eight essays, articles, and other texts by political theorist Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) in Armenian translation. The translations were done within the scope of the Certificate in Translation Program at AUA. The volume includes: “We Refugees” (1943), “Expansion and the Philosophy of Power” (1946); “Ideology and Terror: A Novel Form of Government” (1953); “The Origins of Totalitarianism: A Reply” (1953); “Karl Jaspers: Citizen of the World?” (1957); “What Is Authority?” (1958); “Society and Culture” (1960), “War and Revolution” (1963).

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THE ARMENIAN AMIRA CLASS OF ISTANBUL

By
Hagop L. Barsoumian

2007

The Armenian Amira Class of Istanbul is Hagop L. Barsoumian’s 1980 Doctoral dissertation at Columbia University. It is the first academic research ever done on the wealthy and powerful Ottoman Armenians, who from the mid-eighteenth to the nineteenth century played a significant role in the Empire and imposed their political leadership to the Armenian millet.

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AUA: A NEW BEGINNING FOR A NEW GENERATION

By
Mihran S. Agbabian

2002

The recollections of Dr. Mihran S. Agbabian, founding president of the American University of Armenia (AUA), of the events and people involved with the establishment of the University. This is a first-hand memoir, chronicling AUA’s formative period through the perspective of its founding president, offering valuable insight into the University’s vision, challenges, and foundational developments.

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A FIELD GUIDE TO BIRDS OF ARMENIA

by Martin S. Adamian  Daniel Klem, Jr.

1997

A Field Guide to Birds of Armenia clearly and effectively documents the bird life of a region largely unknown in the West but richly endowed with biological and cultural diversity. Here an international team of expert ornithologists shines the international spotlight on the fascinating birds of Armenia in one of the world’s newest and very best regional field guides. The authors and their expert collaborators describe the beauty and pleasure of Armenian birds and their diverse habitats. No other work offers such effective descriptions of Armenian birds. The detailed knowledge of species distributions and relative abundances will promote and ensure wise stewardship of birds as a valuable Armenian natural resource.

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Armen Der Kiureghian

Dr. Armen Der Kiureghian is a co-founder of AUA and has served in many capacities for the University, including as Founding Dean of Engineering from 1991 to 2007, as Interim Provost during the academic year 2011-2012, as President from 2014 to 2019, and as Interim President from 2023 to 2024. He is a founding member of the Board of Trustees of the American University of Armenia Corporation, where he continues to serve to this day.

Susan Sontag

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) was an American writer, essayist, cultural critic, and filmmaker. She gained international recognition for her influential essays on art, photography, illness, and politics, including Against Interpretation (1966), On Photography (1977), and Illness as Metaphor (1978). A prominent public intellectual of the late 20th century, Sontag combined literary creativity with incisive social commentary, shaping debates on culture, human rights, and the role of the intellectual in public life.

Dianna Torosyan

Dianna Torosyan is an AUA alumna. She graduated from the MATEFL program in 2016. Irshat Madyarov is an associate professor and chair of the MA TEFL program. He earned his M.A. in TESOL from West Virginia University and his Ph.D. in Second Language Acquisition and Instructional Technology from USF. He has taught English as a second and foreign language, as well as applied linguistics courses, at both graduate and undergraduate levels in the United States. Dr. Madyarov has presented and published internationally, and his research interests include digital technologies in TESOL, language assessment, teacher education, bilingual preschool education, and brain studies.

Vahram Danielyan

Vahram Danielyan has been teaching at AUA since 2014. He received his Ph.D. in Armenian Philology from Yerevan State University in 2009 and was a Manoogian Simone Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 2010–2011. From 2011 to 2018, he served as an assistant professor in the Department of Modern Armenian Literature at Yerevan State University. Dr. Danielyan has participated in numerous conferences and workshops in Armenia and abroad, including at UCLA, the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), and the University of California, Berkeley. In 2016, he took part in the World Literature seminars at Harvard University and received a certificate from the Institute of World Literature. He is the author of several scholarly articles and the co-author of two books.

Arto Vaun

Arto Vaun is a poet and musician from Boston. He holds an M.A. in English Literature from the University of Massachusetts Boston and a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from the University of Huddersfield. In 2016, he founded and became the director of AUA’s Center for Creative Writing. He also taught at universities in Boston and Glasgow. At AUA, he taught courses in Creative Writing, Modernism, World Literature, Modern Poetry, and related subjects. His research interests include creative writing, transnational poetics, Modernism, and diaspora studies.

Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) was a German-born political theorist and one of the most influential intellectuals of the 20th century. Forced to flee Nazi Germany, she later settled in the United States, where she taught at institutions including the New School for Social Research and the University of Chicago. Arendt is best known for works such as The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), The Human Condition (1958), and Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), in which she introduced the concept of the “banality of evil.” Her scholarship continues to shape debates on power, authority, totalitarianism, and the nature of political life.

Hagop Levon Barsoumian

Hagop Levon Barsoumian (1936–1986) was an Armenian-American historian and scholar of the late Ottoman Empire. He earned his Ph.D. in history from Columbia University with a dissertation on the Armenian amira class, later published as The Armenian Amira Class of Istanbul. Barsoumian taught Middle Eastern and Armenian history at several universities in the United States and abroad. His research focused on the Armenian community of the Ottoman Empire, modernization, and the role of Armenian elites in Ottoman society. Tragically, his life was cut short when he was abducted and killed during the Lebanese Civil War. Despite his early death, his work remains highly influential in Armenian and Ottoman studies.

Mihran S. Agbabian

Mihran S. Agbabian (1923–2018) was an Armenian-American engineer, educator, and founding president of the American University of Armenia (AUA). Born in Syria and educated in the United States, he received his B.S. and M.S. in engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and his Ph.D. in engineering mechanics from the California Institute of Technology. Agbabian served as a professor and department chair at the University of Southern California and contributed extensively to research in civil and structural engineering. In 1991, following Armenia’s independence, he co-founded AUA and served as its first president, guiding the institution through its formative years.